India Reschedules INSAT-4A Launch Program

June 28, 2005

A delay in the Ariane space program has forced the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) to reschedule the launch of INSAT-4A, to around August-September this year.

The satellite was to be launched in the first half of 2005.

Confirming this, ISRO chief G. Madhavan Nair said in Bangalore on Monday that the European Space Agency (ESA), which is in charge of the Ariane launch program, had sought more time to launch the Indian spacecraft in the INSAT-4 series.

"The launch is likely to take place either in the last week of August or first week of September. Ariane has faced some difficulty and delay in launching the first two satellites of other countries. INSAT-4A is the third launch for the ESA this year," Nair said on the sidelines of a twin conference on planetary exploration and space laws in Bangalore.

The Indian satellite will be launched from French Guyana in South America. The three-ton INSAT-4A will have 12 Ku band transponders for direct-to-home (DTH) satellite-link telecast applications and 12 C band communication transponders.

INSAT-4A is the first in the INSAT-4 series, which is planned to have seven satellites. INSAT will have about 225 active transponders in various frequency bands by 2007, which can cater to the demand up to 11 GBPS capacity with the present day technology.

Copyright 2005 by Space Daily, Distributed by United Press International

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